The Path from Passive Management to Proactive Leadership (2024)

Passive management is a well-established investment strategy. It seeks to manage risks and deliver consistent returns by mirroring the holdings of an established index fund. There is no need for portfolio managers to anticipate market trends, place bets, or react quickly to new information.

Passive management is also a common leadership style that has enabled many to succeed and even thrive in organizations. Passive managers are usually adept at performing daily tasks. They don’t make waves because they never stray from the mainstream. And just like passive investment managers, they follow the lead of others.

As a long-term investment strategy, passive management has a strong track record. But as a leadership style, it is not what organizations need in today’s fast-paced, constantly changing business environment. If we learned anything from the disarray of the last several years, it is that business leaders need to be proactive. Waiting, watching situations unfold, and acting only when consensus behavior has been established is ultimately a strategy to become irrelevant.

Unlike passive managers, proactive leaders anticipate changes in the environment. They search out new ways of doing things and better solutions to address customer problems. Rather than waiting for directions from above, they forge a plan of action to help advance the company’s strategy. They make decisions quickly, execute rapidly, and lead in the face of uncertainty.

In my experience, some people are born to be proactive leaders. For others – especially those who were schooled in a top-down management culture – the path to proactive leadership is difficult. It requires practice, commitment and a dogged determination to step out of your comfort zone.

For those who are willing to make the change, here are five recommendations to help you get started on the path to proactive leadership:

1. Begin with self-awareness. In order to understand your propensity for taking action, take the time to recognize how people react to you. Are they comfortable approaching you with new ideas? Do they see you as a change agent, change blocker, or on the fence? Are you known as a delegator or micromanager? You can do this by self-examination and by seeking honest feedback from colleagues. The patterns you identify will help determine the degree of behavior changes you need to make.
2. Emulate a proactive leader. You know who they are. They are the leaders who surround themselves with talent, who always seem to be driving new initiatives, and who have a reputation for rocking the boat. Seeking their advice and comparing their leadership style with your own will uncover ideas to take action, gain organizational buy-in, and overcome implementation obstacles.
3. Start making small changes. Actively search out ways to eliminate low-value activities and use digitalization technologies to improve department processes. Challenge your team to find new ways of doing things, understanding that small changes can make a big difference. A few quick wins will send the message that you are open to new ideas.
4. Focus on improving the customer experience. Not everyone is involved in developing and delivering products and services, but many people across the organization can play a role in improving the way customers engage with your company. Those opportunities come from concentrating on how every interaction can help the customer achieve their goals. The changes can go a long way toward improving brand equity and loyalty to your company.
5. Create a culture of change. The primary goal of a proactive leader is to create an environment where your team members feel safe to surface new ideas and make bold decisions that serve the business. They need to be constantly reminded about the need for change. Most importantly, they need to be encouraged and rewarded for challenging the status quo and executing on new strategies to transform the way work gets done.

Successful leaders no longer have the luxury of waiting for directions on how to do their job. The path ahead for each of us comes down to a simple choice: You can allow the unfolding of events around you determine how you react to a situation, or you can take action to determine how the events around you unfold. I hope you choose the path to proactive leadership.